


Do You Know Me?

by Book_Keeper



Series: Into The Unknown [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale is a Mess (Good Omens), Canon Compliant, Crowley's Name is Crawly | Crawley (Good Omens), Gen, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, Not Beta Read, Platonic Soulmates, Pravuil is God's record keeper, Pre-Canon, Soulmates, We fall like Crowley, can be read as, technically, the sequel less so, though no Efforts or gender identity is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24748483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Book_Keeper/pseuds/Book_Keeper
Summary: Crawly and Aziraphale were not made to live on Earth. So why did they go there in the first place? How did they get their assignments? What led them down the separate paths that would ultimately have them collide with each other?An angel and a demon both hear and feel something that inspires their curiosity for the unknown.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Into The Unknown [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789645
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Do You Know Me?

**Author's Note:**

> Have you ever had an idea for an animatic, but can't draw? Has that idea not left your mind for months until it's literally the only thing you can think about whenever you hear/see the thing that inspired it in the first place? That's what this is! An attempt at writing out plot and some understandable description of what should be a storyboard.
> 
> Entirely inspired by this “duet” version of Into The Unknown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6pZEqvgXqI  
> I mean, the implications of this song as a duet… oof.

It hadn’t been long since the Rebellion was ended and the Fallen had… done just that. At least, that’s how it seemed to Aziraphale. Time still wasn’t actually a thing yet, but it would be very soon. Everyone in Heaven and the newly gathered Hell were bustling about trying to ready everything for the soon to come creation. Earth and, perhaps more notably, Humans were apparently the next ‘Big Thing’ and were to be the main focus of attention. 

Aziraphale was not particularly interested in all that himself. Of course, he was invested and excited as all good angels should be, but he would have been perfectly happy to get to know Pravuil and have better access to all those Holy records they had been putting together. Maybe he’d even be able to secure a position as an apprentice of sorts and actually be stationed with them full time! But before he could plan too far ahead, he had to make sure he wasn’t needed for anything related to all the new planning regarding this Earth business.

\---

If someone had asked Crawly (which he had taken to answering to since no one bothered to call him anything else once he had made his way out of a pit of sulfur and tried to shake off the excess) what life as a demon would be like before he had taken the oh-so-graceful-thank-you-very-much flop out of the stars he’d have responded, “Can’t say I know. Never met one before.”

He’d met a lot of demons by now and had to say they were awful. There was the aggression, rage, malice, and pure hatred they still had pent up from everything that had gone down (a little too literally). Now there was also the fact that once most of everyone had taken some form of it out on each other, they realized that a better use of their time would be to plot the never-ending downfall and torment of the Almighty’s next all-important creations. 

All that combined meant that demons were awful. Awfully boring that is. If they weren’t busy testing out potential tortures on each other they were organizing plans for an office and delegating menial and tedious tasks about. Crawly felt lucky (Not blessed. Not anymore.) that no one had really bothered to take too much note of him, so they didn’t think of him to fill in any of those roles. Fine by him. He’d sit around the back halls and shadows of Hell forever if he could just keep his head down and not deal with anyone ever again. 

\---

“All members of the original company were present and accounted for,” Aziraphale explained with a pleasant smile. “Everyone content in their new assignments or to continue training until further notice, as per instruction.”

“Excellent!” replied Gabriel, also smiling but not looking up from the paperwork scattered all around and in his hands. Aziraphale couldn’t blame him. If he had been told upon his creation that he was to be Messenger of God and then finally get the work that seemed to be involved with such a title, he would be monstrously busy but eager to see it through. 

He was a tad jealous. Ever since the need of his battalion had ended, he was more or less put on desk duty as well. Tying up loose ends with his company members and making sure they were all doing well enough in their own new work. Still, he was hoping there would be an opportunity to discuss his growing interest in record keeping and other works of that nature. The Archangel in front of him gave him a cursory glance over a few unwound scrolls before looking away again and writing some notes elsewhere. “What about you?”

“What about me?” Aziraphale answered easily.

“Surely you’ve got something else going on? I mean, you were in charge of that battalion, but what about now? Any… I don’t know… hobbies?” Aziraphale tried his best not to let too much humor show in his smile at how the other angel was trying to make pleasantries. It really wasn’t his style.

“Now that you mention it, you know the Record Keeper, Pravuil?” 

“Yeah. Up to their wingtips in dealing with all the new plans for the Garden. Not to mention the millions of names to note down of the Fallen.” He exhaled a dramatic sigh in sympathy. 

“Just the one. I’ve been around that area lately, and I’ve actually grown rather interested in their work.” Gabriel looked up at that, a rather confused look gracing his otherwise gentle features.

“You… like secretarial work?”

“Oh, gracious, it’s so much more than that! In fact –” Aziraphale was quite prepared to attempt to enlighten Gabriel with tales of his latest research into the creation of air molecules when a quiet but high-pitched tone seemed to ring throughout his whole being. He shuddered and turned around to look for some sort a source. He had never felt anything like that before in his entire conscious memory. 

“Helloooo?” called Gabriel. Aziraphale turned back around with a start. “So sorry. Did you, uh, feel that?”

“I didn’t feel anything,” he responded with another smile, but a tad less genuine than others he had produced earlier in the conversation. “but I better be getting on with all this. Lots to do you know! Have fun with the secretary!” 

“Ah… record keeper, actually. But yes. I’ll, um, do my best.” Aziraphale was disappointed he couldn’t have the full conversation he had wanted with the Archangel, but he was more concerned with the feeling he’d had. 

It came again not long after as he was making his way back towards his usual working place. The noise, if he could call it that, was no louder but buzzed through him in a way that was almost pleasant if alarming. It certainly didn’t feel like the Lord. Everyone knew what it felt like to be spoken to directly whether or not it had ever happened. This was different, though somehow just as personal. As if whatever it was knew the inner workings of his being so thoroughly it could fit right at home with his own divine frequency. Any time he looked around while it happened, no one else lifted their head from work nor was looking around to see what was amiss. Aziraphale wasn’t sure if he liked this.

\---

Crawly dug his finger as far into his ear as he could possibly manage and shook it.

“BLAST it all. Did Falling knock something loose??” He asked nothing and no one in particular. He’d been stuck feeling and hearing the incessant ringing for what felt like days. Or what would amount to days if he remembered the plans correctly. Each time it happened he was taken so completely by surprise by the intense feeling of being _known _that it made him want to grind his teeth flat. Unfortunately, that was the only thing he had to go on while he tried to figure out how to make it stop.__

__“Can’t let anyone else down here find out I’ve got a defect. Might try to do something about it…” Best not think about those possibilities though. As the moment passed, he moved further through the dank hallways that Crawly knew were eventually going to be fashioned into some kind of offices for planning all manners of unspeakable terrors. Probably team-building related. All too soon he felt the start of another wave of tingles coming on, and this time he tried to push back with his own dark essence. “Look! I don’t know WHAT you are, but I am not dealing with this. Fuck! Off!”__

____

____

__Much to his surprise, the feeling changed. It grew just a tad louder, but the ringing became clearer in response. Less buzzy and higher pitched. He pushed out again and it seemed to be responding each time. It wasn’t much, but it was something different. Better to try again._ _

____

“I’m not listening to this!”

____

“I don’t care what’s going on, I’m not going to hear you.”

____

“Look, I don’t want any more trouble. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is.”

____

“I can tell you’re not from around here since literally anyone I even remotely knew Upstairs is here now and you’re not them, so why the Heaven should I care about you??”

____

“I think I’ve been through enough for an eternity or two already, so can you just… stop?”

____

Nothing ever quieted the sound. It only grew more insistent, like it was getting an attitude with Crawly about being talked to in such a manner. The feeling remained the same though. Under the shudders and the whining, a small but undeniable feeling that whatever this was, it knew him and was trying to get a message across.

____

\---

____

Aziraphale paced irritably down the back balconies of the record office. He had managed to become a familiar enough face around that no thought twice to give him access and menial tasks to do. It was a start. The kind he’d been hoping for. Now he was rather distracted and getting upset about it.

____

“I can assure you that I have far too much on my mind to be dealing with the likes of you, whatever you are, at the moment.” He whispered to nothing but the sound in his mind. And he was sure it was just in his mind. Anyone else he mentioned his symptoms to offhand looked confused or concerned until he simply laughed it off and brushed it aside.

He’d been doing that for a while now. Long enough that he had tried more than once to block or fight back the feeling with whatever unnoticeable but decent amount of celestial power he could dish out. All it had done was garner some kind of buzzing response. It hummed back. And that just made him curious. Which worried him more than the presence itself did.

____

“I’m sorry, but I really cannot be distracted by you any further.” He worried his hands and bounced on his toes. “There’s a lot that could go wrong for me if something seems off, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you. I think it would be best if you left me alone from now on.” The feeling returned, seeming to prod at him. Aziraphale looked mournfully out into the Heavenly cosmos. He knew all too well what had happened to countless other angels when they had felt things were off. He couldn’t risk that, even for something that wasn’t his own doing. To his knowledge anyway.

____

“Please,” he whispered out. “I’m… I’m just worried. I can’t risk exploring this any further.” All at once, the ringing shudders that he had become used to brushed through him with incredible gentleness. He felt almost like he could sing out with it as it filled him and seemed to pull at what felt like his soul. “Oh dear.”

____

\---

____

“Ugh. Listen. It’s been ages and I’m trying to sleep through at least SOME of this construction nonsense going on around here, so would you pipe down a bit already?" Crawly had never really felt the urge to sleep before, but now that the Voice, as he had taken to calling it, was keeping it from him he was rather put out about it. He had laid down on the first flat surface he could find and had been trying to see what the fuss with being unconscious was all about when the shuddery feeling had come back. It rang and seemed to spirit around him to encourage him to follow, if the tingly sensations he continued to feel were anything to go by.

____

“I don’t know about you, but distractions from work have never really ended well for me. I’d, uh… I’d rather not make the same mistake twice, thanks much.” The Voice paused for a while, but then gleefully returned. Crawly groaned. “Lucifer, Himself! What do you want?!” 

He sat up and scratched at his scalp vigorously. The Voice had no words of wisdom, only a slightly firmer tug on what Crawly could only assume was what was left of his infernal soul. He sighed and let his head hang for a minute before stretching out his essence and trying to see what path it was trying to create. He didn’t push too far since the Voice seemed to want to go every which way and out of his current plane of existence.

____

“Bit of a hassle.” He noted as he rained his own powers back in. “No telling what you’ve got out there. Not that it’s not getting harder to ignore you.” He smirked and looked out into the vast nothing around him and imagined stars. “What would you show me? If I did follow you? Quite the temptation, that.”

____

\---

____

At this point, Aziraphale had almost gotten used to the Feeling, as he had taken to calling it. He didn’t turn to look around for a source and never flinched when the volume seemed to get louder for a moment. He barely shuddered when he felt it flow through him anymore, even during one particularly notable occurrence when it felt like an actual weight had been added to the end of the string that was pulling on him. It was just a moment, but that had been the hardest he’d ever had to fight to hold a nonchalant expression in front of those around him. These days he tended to find the Feeling a bit of a comfort even. A resource to talk about his worries or his doubts about what was going on in Heaven, at least where it concerned him.

____

“You know,” the angel whispered, “I admit that I…, I’ve grown rather more worried about my position here. Truly the records are superb and I would be hard-pressed to find anything like them anywhere else I can think of. It’s just… what good could I do that the others here haven’t already covered? I just inserted myself and they’ve given me things to do… I’m sure the Almighty has other plans for me. Something else for me to do... Have I just not noticed?” He found himself internally leaning towards the Feeling, as he often did while worrying. “Do you have an idea? Could you… could you be like me? Unsure what you’re really supposed to be doing? Reaching out for someone to sympathize with?”

____

Aziraphale made his way out of the records office and into the farthest expanse of the cosmos he could go without getting completely lost. He got comfortable in some stardust and took a deep satisfying breath. Studying those notes about air had been really something.

____

“I… I don’t suppose, if I were to actually, um,… follow your lead – that is to say, see where you’ve been wanting to take me,… would you, ah,… finally, let yourself… be known? You seem to know me so well already. It feels… well, truly, it feels like you’ve always been there and you just haven’t spoken up until you did. I suppose, what I mean to say is… I’ll go with you. If you’re out there.”

____

He closed his eyes and clasped his hands as if in prayer. He knew She was always with him, but he rather hoped She was still busy with all the Time business that had been mucking about and that he would go a bit more unnoticed than usual. Aziraphale relaxed his celestial form and completely released his essence from its current formation. 

While only a small taste of what he considered his True Form, it represented his most deep self. Formless and all energy. Separate from the Divine or otherwise, the Almighty as known could only be recognized as his creator, as She was with all things. Aziraphale’s essence immediately found the Feeling, all the more powerful in this even less tangible form, and began to follow it into an unknown plane.

____

\---

____

Hell was in a bit of an uproar. Time was just starting to kick in, and that was a feeling Crawly didn’t think he’d ever quite get used to. More importantly, with the start of Time, the start of actual Earth construction had begun and anything and everything left to plan needed doing. Which, he suspected, was a lot more than anyone of note down there would like to admit. At the last meeting that he had overheard anything about, absolutely no one had a clue of what to actually DO with Earth or the future inhabitants. Not a creative mind between the lot of them. Just a few ill-intended boasts about making them suffer and being the bane of God and Heaven, but no real plan. Not exactly the best boost for morale, but everyone kept moving about to keep looking busy.

____

With nothing better to do himself, Crawly returned to one of his frequented dark hallways to slink through the corners and talk to the Voice. It seemed very active. It fluttered in his chest, stomach, and head in a way that could have made him dizzy if he wasn’t careful. The demon carefully prodded back out with his essence once again and wasn’t particularly surprised to feel it want to lead him away from his current reality. Wherever that was. When the pull turned more into a weighted push, he coughed out a few consonants and leaned into a wall to steady himself.

____

“Alright. Alright! Bless it all, I’m done with questions about who or what or why you are what you are, and how you seem to… have something to do with me somehow. I’ll go, okay? Just make it quick so I can figure it out and get back to business here.”

____

Crawly slid down the grimy wall behind him, made sure there wasn’t anyone coming before he shut his eyes, and then let his physical form dissipate in order to follow.

____

\---

____

The plane on which they found themselves was unlike any they had seen before. Cosmic clouds colored and brightened every corner of the sky that could be seen. The ground and surrounding areas were also filled with dense puffs of billowy, cloud-like stardust, with just the hint of dark eternity peeking through every so often.

____

Aziraphale and Crawly were not near each other. Their essences were maneuvering around separate areas, trying to come to terms with what they were seeing. They could feel how purely Divine this place was and it almost scared them. In his careful sneaking through the mist Crawly suddenly realized he wasn’t alone. He sensed a strong presence, remembered why he was there in the first place, and called out with his own unique vibration directly from his soul. Can’t very well call with a voice without a voice box to do it with.

____

Immediately it flew through the air and Aziraphale was almost covered in it. His soul knew this being. He could not tell who or what it was but it didn’t matter. The angel was quick to call back, his own soul harmonizing and searching for its match. Was this unknown entity the reason that he was called? Because they were meant to know one another?

____

Aziraphale and Crawly searched through the cosmic plane for a long time, each calling out in turn. Their voices filled the air around them and reverberated off one another. With each passing moment, they became more and more sure. Aziraphale had never felt such comfort. Crawly had never felt such acceptance. Whoever was on the other side of this feeling, this voice, this call, was another extension of their true self. A being without whom the rest of their existence would amount to so much less than either of them could imagine.

____

‘Please’, they each thought. ‘let me find you. I have to know you.’

____

Without much warning, both entities felt a pullback towards their original planes. They fought against it in order to continue their searching, but it was ultimately in vain. 

They cried out for clarity. They prayed for understanding. How could they be made aware of each other but not know who the other was or how to follow them? 

As angel and demon blinked their eyes back open, in Heaven and Hell respectively, one word was passed through their minds. It drove them each to run down all the halls and stairways in order to get to the planning departments. They each slammed open doors to offices that despite their differences in the mission statements, shared the same name.

____

**Earth **Deployment Office****

__******** _ _

Aziraphale knew he would be of better use if he could offer his skills as a warrior, so why not apply to be stationed in the newly forming Garden? 

Crowley knew the assholes had no idea what they were going to do anyway, so why not act eager and throw himself into the mix? 

If they could get to Earth, they would be on the right track. With all its unknowns and questions, Earth was the answer to finding the voice of the call.

__******** _ _

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously comments and kudos are appreciated. This is officially the first thing I've posted to AO3 and it's incredibly terrifying ^_^ If there are any glaring issues, either with typos or just general flow, please feel free to leave constructive advice. Or you can DM me on twitter (Book_Keeper25)! 
> 
> As you can see, I put this as part of a series. My brain can't stop and I have a sequel planned that is also an animatic-kinda idea that's been floating around in my brain for just as long as this one and it's been killing me to actually write it out. Here's hoping now that this is out to the masses of the internet, I'll be encouraged to actually write that one too. Haha!


End file.
